Volkswagen to spend $40 billion on electric cars

Many key players in the global automobile market including General Motors, Porsche, Ford, Honda, and even Lamborghini have announced plans to go either hybrid or fully electric.

Following suit of the revolutionizing auto industry, yet another automaker has stepped up to the new trend in making their vehicles more prone to the green globe vision. Volkswagen (VW) has announced that they plan to spend more than $40 billion, between 2018 and 2022, on developing electric cars, autonomous (self-driving) vehicles, and upgrading to new technology.

Most of that money, the company stated after a supervisory meeting will be spent on updating Volkswagen’s current models to into electric or hybrid.

Volkswagen recently announced its plan to set up plants in Pakistan, after 3 automakers were granted permission by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to initiate operations.

This announcement is significantly greater than a previous and different pledge, released in August, that Volkswagen would invest 20 billion euros through 2030 on electric vehicles and self-driving cars.“With the planning round now approved, we are laying the foundation for making Volkswagen the world’s No. 1 player in electric mobility by 2025,” said Matthias Mueller, Volkswagen CEO, in a press conference, an online news agency reported.

The German automobile company has five electric models running: E-Up, E-Golf, Golf GTE, Passat and Passat Estate. With this fresh investment trajectory, the automotive giant has unveiled plans for several more, including an electric cynosure with autonomous features and a vintage cross electric.

Volkswagen’s haul for more environment-friendly vehicles comes as a shocker; the company has hardly gotten itself out of the 2015 emissions cheating scandal. The scandal blew up when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is a federal US environmental watchdog, discovered that VW vehicles contained a manipulation device that allowed them to cheat the emission standards test when CO2 emissions were detected, but emit up to 40 times more greenhouse gases than the legal U.S. limit otherwise.

Volkswagen (VW) has announced that they plan to spend more than $40 billion, between 2018 and 2022, on developing electric cars, autonomous (self-driving) vehicles, and upgrading to new technology.

The shift is also being prompted by quotas requiring the revolutionizing of the automobile industry in China, which aims to convert to electric vehicles by 2030. In China, there are more electric vehicles sold than anywhere else and Volkswagen aims to target the ever growing Chinese auto demands. A news agency reports that Volkswagen plans to inject as much as $11.8 billion in China over the next seven to eight years, which includes developing as many as 40 new electric and hybrid models by 2025.

There are currently 38 automotive companies that are producing electric, hybrid or self-driving vehicles. Although autonomous (self-driving) vehicles are not commercially functional, there are some states in the US that have allowed their commercial sale.

Volkswagen recently announced its plan to set up plants in Pakistan, after 3 automakers were granted permission by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to initiate operations.

Volkswagen’s haul for more environment-friendly vehicles comes as a shocker; the company has hardly gotten itself out of the 2015 emissions cheating scandal.

This decision was taken in light of the immense pressure from the consumers and international players to break the monopoly held by three automobile companies in Pakistan: Honda, Suzuki and Toyota. The three automakers have been producing domestic cars in Pakistan for several decades and are now in serious doldrums because of declining quality of vehicles, poor distribution rate and complaints from consumers.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is in final talks with Premier Systems Private Limited – the authorized importer of Audi vehicles in the country – to set up a manufacturing/assembly plant for its Amarok and T6 (transporter range) models. Volkswagen believes that such vehicles are bound to be popular in the constricted Pakistani market that has not seen the good quality of domestic vehicles in a long while.

Global Village Space is a news web portal that aims to provide a platform to all to promote dialogue and understanding. The portal will present all shades of opinion to enhance understanding. We encourage our writers to be respectfully irreverent and our readers to be tolerant.